How a horror film should be done

Rating: 9/10 (14 February 2010)

Danny Boyle has proved to be a director who can do almost any genre. He has done dark-comedy, crime, drugs, sci-fi and a children's film, and with 28 Days Later he shows he can do a horror/post-apocalyptic film with chilling consequences. This was also a big success for Fox Spotlight (the only good wing of Fox at the moment): with a $5 Million it made nearly $83 Million and was even more successful in the United States then it was in it's nation UK.
28 Days after the release of the rage virus, Britain has become devastated. Main cities are deserted, the inflected, pretty much zombie like people, roam the streets. In London a bike courier Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up from a coma, and is shocked to find London is empty and has no knowledge of the event that has happened. He meets up with two other survivors, Selena (Naomie Harris) and Mark (Noah Huntley) who tell him everything that happens. After being chased by inflected, Jim and Selena go to a tower block and meet up with Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and his teenage daughter Hannah (Megan Burns). They hear an emergency broadcast from the army to go Manchester and the group quickly head-off. But it not just the inflected that the survivors have to worry about.
Danny Boyle teamed up with Alex Garland, a successful novelist, to make a bleak, haunting film about the end of the world. They are strong scenes, like the deserted London, with only hints of what happens. They don't show the collapse of Britain, so leave it up to the audience's imagination. Boyle and Garland also focus on the most important factor in storytelling: character. There are interesting and believable, who have different views about live and the world. Selena is a pessimistic woman who has to be violence to survivor, Jim is a man who thrown into an extraordinary position, and the compelling father daughter relationship between Frank and Hannah. Major Henry West (Christopher Eccleston) and the army also show what man can do at it's worst. Danny Boyle shows his skill behind camera, using an effective hand-held camera, giving the film a more gritty, realistic felt, adding to the horror of the events. He shows he has a good sense for action, scares and more tender moments, allowing character interaction and revel who people really are. As a horror film it is very effective, even to people who don't like the genre. Boyle and Garland also add some moments of dark comedy to relax the film a tiny bit.
They is also a good cast in the film. 28 Days Later brought Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris to the public, and the two have stared in Batman Begins and the second and third Pirates films. But it was Brendan Gleeson and Christopher Eccleston who offered the experience the film needed, particularly Christopher Eccleston as a near mad army officer, like Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now.
Garland and Boyle were also influenced by George A. Romero's Living Dead trilogy, with the collapse of society in Dawn of the Dead, the siege environment of Dawn and Night of the Living Dead, and the relationship between the army and civilians was like in Day of the Dead.
An excellent horror film.